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October 1979

“Governor, how does it feel to know that in another history you were President for 8 years? That in a sense you are running for re-election?”

“I can look at every decision made, see the outcome, and how history regarded it. I can compare my record with that of Carter, and I think it is a favorable comparison”

“What would you do differently?”

“I considered Iran and the freedom fighters in Afghanistan to be a useful counterweight to the Soviet Union. Instead they outlasted the demise of the Soviet Union and became a threat to world peace themselves. They might even have been the cause of the nuclear war in 2006 which our second chance is allowing us to prevent. It also turned out that the freedom fighters in Afghanistan had no desire for freedom, but instead, after chasing the Soviets out, to impose one of the harshest dictatorships in the world.”

“This belief you have in the world being given a second chance. You know that not everyone agrees with you. And, if you’ll forgive me for saying this, some have even said about you something they said about Goldwater, In your guts, you know he’s nuts.”

“Well. is it nuts to think there might have been a purpose behind what everyone agrees was a deliberate action of moving New England through time? This was the first recorded instance of time travel since the battle of Jericho in the Bible. As for the comparison with Barry Goldwater, I’m honored. I do prefer quotes from Goldwater to ones about him. My favorite, is extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

“What do you think of President Carter’s policies towards the Middle East?”

“His pledge to defend our Persian Gulf allies from invasion is one I support. What I disagree with is his unwillingness to build up America’s military to back up this pledge. In the other history, in 1991, when we needed to retake Kuwait after Iraq invaded it, people were saying it would be like World War One trench fighting, how we would lose thousands of soldiers fighting against a half a million battle hardened soldiers who spent 8 years fighting Iran. Instead they were surprised by our easy victory. Well let me tell you something, that victory only looked easy due to the buildup of advanced technology during my terms of office. Now we will have to do even more, the whole world knows the secrets of the future military technologies, so we need to build them now, before they do, and research further advances. Also, let me tell you that in New England, we have submarine factories, and companies that developed anti-missile technologies, and unmanned aircraft. We can build these before anyone else can reinvent them.”

“What about his tacit agreement with the Soviets to leave Afghanistan alone?”

“We must watch closely to make sure that Afghanistan does not become a base for international terrorism.

“Do you think that Communism will last longer than it did in the New England Future?”

Communism is on its last legs. Maybe it can be propped up for a while longer, but everyone knows that it will be relegated to the dustbin of history. Right now we are seeing mainland China transforming their economy to capitalism, and the other history showed the unbelievable success they achieved. However the other history also showed that with economic freedom, political freedom is also demanded. They violently suppressed protests in 1989, and later. They should learn that they could be even better off by letting their people achieve all their aspirations for democracy.”

“Some, in 2006, complained that too much of the manufactured goods purchased in the US was made in China.”

“When they are further along in their transformation to a modern free market economy, they will be ready to assume the responsibilities that go along with that. That will be a job for a future President, to make sure that trade terms are fair, when they have reached that point.”

“Finally, there is a difficult subject I want to bring up. You were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease after you left office, but some say that you had some mental effects of it during your second term as President, in the New England Future.”

“First of all, there were no symptoms of this disease during the term of office I am running for, 1981 to 1985. As for later, well, there was quite a lot of research done to create a cure by 2006, and many of those research centers are in New England. I think that a cure will be found, before I might be affected by it. We can talk about this again in 1984 assuming John Hinckley doesn’t improve his marksmanship.”

Channel 4 News.October 5th 1979.

Business News:

The Hunt brothers are out of the Silver business. Did the web site, Slashdot.org have anything to do with it? We’ll let Bunker Hunt explain.

“We’ve sold all of our silver holdings. Someone told me about an Internet discussion group called slash dot dot org. They sometimes would make fun of money making schemes, by showing step 1, step 2, both carefully thought out, step 4 was “Profit!”, and step 3 was a question mark. That is exactly what we did. Step 1 was buy all the world’s silver for sale. That led to step 2, drive the price of silver really high, so our silver hoard was now worth a heck of a lot. Unfortunately there is no step 3 we could think of to lead to step 4 “Profit!”. When you sell that much silver, the price goes down, and you’ll get less money than it took to buy it in the first place. The silver market was going to collapse in March 1980, and we were going to go bankrupt.”

It is still not known if they are going to face indictment for their actions before July 1979. Their original indictment included actions of theirs in 1979.

In other news, Ikea is going to reopen their New England stores on October 23rd. It isn’t clear why they have been closed this long, since shortly after the Event. Their New England stores are in Stoughton Massachusetts and New Haven Connecticut. These will now be their only stores in the US. They will be running shuttle buses from the main New Haven rail station, to make it easier for New York customers to shop there. They offer, for a fee, shipping of purchases.

Channel 4.October 6th 1979.

We are going to follow up our earlier series, “College after the Event”.

New England has had, in both 1979 and 2006, many Colleges and Universities, with many students from out of New England.

Federal law says that every student enrolled can attend, and for this school year the tuition cannot be any higher than they were told before the Event. For some schools that means crowding in more students than expected, for others fewer.

The students from 1979 usually find a campus with more buildings, more programs, and far more use of computers. Schools provided special orientations for returning students. There are also some changes in store for 2006 students. Instead of textbooks, many courses rely on photocopies of textbooks. By next year all the books should be back in print. Schools that had a requirement that everyone bring a computer have had to suspend that policy. Circa 2006 computers have become simply too valuable to require students to purchase.

The students of Bradford College in Haverhill Massachusetts were in for an unpleasant surprise. Those who were not notified arrived at a boarded up campus. Their school went out of business in the year 2000. Other schools with a shortage of students have made room for those students.

Students from 1979 have been advised to not bring their typewriters. Shared computers are usually available, and the IBM PC is adequate for word processing. The IBM PC is at the technology level of approximately 1982. They have been advised that first time word processor users almost always vastly prefer it to typewriters.

Some engineering programs are requiring students to have scientific calculators from Hewlett Packard or Texas Instruments that are available in 1979. The courseware they depended upon will have to wait a few years until powerful enough computers are available for every student.

Part of the orientation is to inform students that alcohol policies have become much stricter on campuses, with many dorms and fraternities forbidding its possession. The drinking age is 21 while in 1979 it was usually 18 or 19.

There are also a smaller number of students from 2006 who enrolled in colleges that are now in 1979. They might find that knowledge from 2006 has not yet been incorporated into their classwork. Many colleges left their courses unchanged for this year, expecting to update textbooks and courses in the fall of 1980.

In our series we are going to interview a professor from 2006 and a student from 1979 who are at the same college and are the same person.

“Very rapidly. We have designs and knowledge through 2006, but have to get our manufacturing ability up to speed. The IBM PC has been designed with upgradability in mind.

We have a plan to lead the way to 2006 technology and beyond, with an open platform that invites competitors to be part of that journey.”

“What can we expect in the next few years?”

“In a year or two expect IBM PC’s with faster processors, more memory, higher capacity floppy disks, higher capacity hard drives, better graphics, and faster modems. All of these will be available as upgrades to the IBM PC you can buy today. In addition expect some specialized models, such as a transportable PC. This won’t resemble the laptop computer yet, but more like a suitcase with a built-in CRT monitor.”

“Can you explain some of the differences between the IBM PC of today, and the IBM PC of 1981 in the New England Future?”

“Sure. We concentrated on interfaces that were popular in that future. We included the USB interface, although with a slower speed than what was called “low speed” in the 2000’s. We also included the RS232 serial port, as it provides a pathway for devices to be built to interface with the IBM PC than the USB does today. We did not include the parallel port.

We also did not include the 5 1/4 inch floppy drive, but introduced the 3 1/2 inch drive years earlier than it would have been. That drive was still found on most PC’s in use in 2006, with a 1.44 MB capacity. Today’s disks are mostly 180 KB, but that will increase when manufacturing of the disks improves. The connection to all monitors is the VGA connector in use in 2006, not the original VGA connector from 1984. These choices simplify the upgrade path, USB, VGA connector, 3 1/2 inch floppy drive, technologies that can be expected to remain in use for a long time.”

“When will we have computers just like the ones in 2006?”

“In 1985 we’ll have early 1990’s technology in some ways, and 2006 technology in others. Some areas will improve faster than others”

“What about software?”

“We are not going to establish a software monopoly, and we are not going to help anyone else establish one. Much of the software we are including with the IBM PC is open source, meaning anyone can modify it and anyone can redistribute it for free. Some of it is owned by IBM, but alternatives exist. There is also a huge amount of software written, in the New England Future, for the 8086 series of microprocessors that is open source, that can be adapted for the IBM PC.”

“I understand that when the anti-trust case against IBM was dismissed, IBM was warned not to establish a PC or PC software monopoly, but how are you going to compete in this market?”

“We couldn’t establish a monopoly if we wanted to. In the New England Future, in 1987, we tried to improve the PC with some proprietary hardware designs. The market refused to accept it, and only bought open platforms, that allowed competition. By 2005, IBM was out of the PC market completely. What we are going to do, is lead the market with technology, manufacturing, quality, reliability, and service. We will compete for our market share every day.”

Channel 4 News. October 12th, 1979.

All 6 New England States are going to complete the lists by the Federal deadline of October 30th. The lists include every resident of New England as of July 25th 2006, who was not actually in New England at the time of the Event.

It includes lists of all their property. All abandoned houses and other buildings have already been identified, and upkeep is being managed by the state governments. Efforts are being made to determine their families in either 1979 or 2006 zones, and also if they themselves are in 1979. Governments around the world are being given lists of those with possible ties to their countries of 1979.

Visitors to New England in 2006 have been and are being helped. Some simply wanted to go home. Many of those were accommodated by their families in 1979, or their 1979 selves. In a few rare cases, the visitor in 2006, took over the empty residence of their 1979 self who was in New England at the time of the event in 1979. Some are being given temporary shelter until they establish themselves in New England or out of New England.

The list also includes records of all ownership, accounts, loans, stocks, bonds, etc., that crossed the boundary of New England on July 25th 2006. The deadline was September 30th, for residents to submit copies of any paper records and an estimate of anything they don’t have paper records for. Every resource is being used to get the records of companies in New England, and records of email, etc., to get more evidence.

A similar list is being created in the rest of the US, and any other country that wants to participate, of 1979 assets and loans in 1979 New England. 2006 New England is cooperating in finding these 27 year old records.

After the lists are finalized the determination of who owns or owes what will be made using the formula passed by Congress. In many cases the owner of a set of assets tied to a set of obligations in 2006 can choose to accept or reject them in total.

Channel 4 News.October 25th, 1979.

In our continuing series of “Visits to New England”, we present a resident of Putnam county New York.

“My impression of New England? A lot more run-down that I expected it to be. The highways seem rough. I was expecting rocket-cars in the air, not asphalt roads with lots of bumps.

I drove the Merritt Parkway past that bridge that used to have the metal grates. That part was an improvement, nice smooth bridge now. Also no tolls. You used to have to stop every few miles and pay a toll.

Then I drove on Route 1 for a while. Some of it is a lot nicer than I remember, and some of it a lot seedier.

I went to IKEA. It’s all 1979 merchandise now, but I did like the Swedish Meatballs. Then Route 95. That road looks old and worn.

Finally, the casinos. They are impressive. The lights and architecture. Probably the only thing I saw that looked like it belonged in what I thought 2006 should look like.”

Now we present a 55 year old man living in a town in New York 2 miles from Connecticut.

“Why did I visit New England? To visit myself. I’m in an assisted living center, 82 years old. At 55, I’m technically old enough to move in myself.

Do you remember that interview with Reagan a while back, where he was asked about Alzheimer’s? I was listening to that one with a lot of attention. Puts things in perspective to know where I’m heading, unless Reagan is right about the research progress.

What did I think of New England? I think those homes are not better or worse in 2006 than they were in 1979.”

Channel 4. October 27th, 1979.

In our continuing series of “Visits to New England”, we are interviewing visitors in Providence, Rhode Island.

“What is your impression of Providence?”

“I can’t figure it out. I took the Amtrak train up here just to look around. This city looks great! I didn’t even know there was a river here until now. Really, this river wasn’t here, and it was only a few months ago, or 27 years and a few months ago, when I was in Providence last. I love the mall, the IMAX movies, everything.

Here’s what I can’t figure out. I heard the jewelry industry is gone. I mean really gone. Same with the textile industry. So why are there new commercial buildings going up everywhere? How can there be people buying all those expensive things in that huge mall?”

“What is your impression of Providence?”

“We were here for WaterFire. Just amazing. They understood how to make the river a tourist attraction instead of running it underground.”

“What is your impression of Providence?”

“I’m not sure. You have to remember that in 1979 this was a city on the rise. So, the new buildings and all aren’t really a surprise. Actually the rest of the city is grittier than I expected.”

Paid Political Presentation by Ronald Reagan.October 27th, 1979.

My fellow Americans. Tonight I am speaking to you about an urgent matter. As you know, when the six states of New England were brought from the year 2006 to 1979, we were given 27 years of advances in technologies, including military technologies. Now, as incredible as it is to believe, many of the defense workers in New England are being let go from their jobs, as their funding ends.

We cannot allow 27 years of progress to dissipate. In New England, we were building advanced submarines, anti-missile missiles, unmanned aircraft, and even items like better winter coats for our troops, letting them fight more effectively in cold weather. We can build these before anyone else can reinvent them.

This is not a partisan issue. Both Republicans and Democrats see the urgency in funding our New England defense workers. However, we need a two thirds majority of both houses of Congress to override a veto by Carter, or to convince him to sign the needed legislation.

We ask Congress to pass a funding bill, and I ask President Carter to sign it.

To our defense workers in New England, this nation values your loyalty and dedication to our security. I personally pledge that all of you will receive your full salaries and benefits. We have a private organization that will raise funds for this purpose.

What can you do to help? Call this 800 number. Operators are standing by to tell you how your Congressman and Senators are voting on this issue, and how you can reach them by phone and mail. And finally, please pledge donations to keep our defense workers employed if the funding bill is not passed quickly.

Thank you and good night.

Pravda.October 29th, 1979.

The technologies revealed by the the time travel event can bring great promise in areas such as medical treatments and food production. They could also be used to bring great instability in the area of armaments and bring the world to the brink of war.

Warmongering circles in the United States are talking about using technologies to give the US the ability to have global military hegemony. The is a dangerous illusion that will not have its intended result.

The Soviet Union will not stand by while the US advances with technologies from the future. The Soviet Union is not without abilities to deploy its own destabilizing technologies. Two examples will be presented.

Instead the Soviet Union offers to agree to moratoriums on destabilizing technologies. The treaty against nuclear weapons in space and limiting anti-ballistic missiles are examples of the type of agreement that should be enacted now.

In the future history, in 2002, the US withdrew from the ABM treaty. Our young comrade, Vladimir Putin, responding by making changes to our intercontinental missiles to not be vulnerable to the anti-ballistic missile technology the US had then. We have analyzed the statements made, and have identified exactly what the changes are, and can make those changes now. In addition, we can build many more missiles to overwhelm an anti-ballistic missile system.

The Patriot missile as it was built in 2006, violates the ABM treaty. US legal experts in the alternate future were very clear about that. The 1980’s version of that missile did not violate the treaty, while the 2006 version did. If any treaty is violated, all arms control treaties will be considered to be null and void.

Another example, is in anti-tank technology. During the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, there was a small mystery to the Americans. A US tank, of the most well armoured tank type in the US inventory, had a smooth hole put in it, from one end to the other. The American experts couldn’t determine what the weapon was, but they did determine it was from the Russian Republic. We can reveal now, that it was a projectile and not a beam. We have identified the present theoretical research project that led to that development. We know how to develop it again.

There is also a belief among some warmongers that the Soviet Union can be forced to spend more on its military than it can afford. In fact, we have identified countermeasures, that we can afford, to every new technology. It would be a huge waste of resources in both the US and Soviet Union, but it will not cause our collapse.

Analysis of Soviet Leadership changes after the Event.October 30th, 1979.

The Soviet leadership is looking for ways to avoid the collapse of both Communism and the Soviet Union that occurred in the New England Future.

One idea being pushed by Yuri Andropov is that Mikhail Gorbachev is in the best position to save both Communism and the Soviet Union. He argues that he never intended either to collapse and can learn from his mistakes. His proposal is that both himself and Konstantin Chernenko be passed over for leadership, and that instead Mikhail Gorbachev be the next leader, although under a tight leash by the rest of the Politburo.

It is not known who the other contenders to follow Brezhnev are. In the New England Future, Brezhnev died on November 10th, 1982. It won’t necessarily follow the same way this time, and they might decide to have him retire to make way for new leadership.

In terms of purges, here is what is known. Boris Yeltsin and Aleksandr Lebed have disappeared, and believed to have been arrested. One source said that he heard “If Lebed was dangerous enough to eliminate in 2002, he’s dangerous enough to eliminate now.” The leaders of the 1991 coup against Gorbachev have been forced to retire, and are all confined to live in the very same resort where they imprisoned Gorbachev during that coup attempt. The leadership was heard to say “They may have meant well, and tried to restore Communism, but those drunken idiots caused the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

Vytautas Landsbergis and several other Lithuanian leaders have been publicly arrested.

Vladimir Putin is a 27 year old student at the KGB. He became leader of the independent Russian Republic, in the New England Future in 1999. He is presently being put on a leadership track. There seems to be a consensus that he should be trained to be a future leader of the Soviet Union.